I’ve just had a lovely telephone conversation with a chap from India, who was phoning on behalf of Microsoft Tech Support. It was a very poor line I must say, but the man on the other end seemed so eager to help that I knew he was legitimate.
He introduced himself as “Kevin” and, after asking me a few questions, became terribly concerned that I hadn’t received ANY of his alert emails.
Apparently I was “infected” and it required his immediate attention. I made some half-strangled noises along the lines of “Who will look after my family?” to which he revealed he was actually talking about my computer. Phew!
I told him that I didn’t actually know much about computers, despite having worked for over fifteen years in the computer games industry. He listened attentively and sympathetically, before offering to help me fix my problems right away.
He then gave me lots of instructions, which I was determined to follow as fastidiously, meticulously, and most importantly as slowly as I possibly could.
After each direction I asked him to wait a moment whilst I neatly placed the phone down on my desk, and prodded at my keyboard with a single finger.
At first Kevin accompanied my efforts lots of sympathetic “hmm’s” and “ahh’s”, but as I don’t actually know that much about computers those little noises soon turned into frustrated grunts and grumbles after twenty minutes had passed and he hadn’t progressed very far with me at all!
Finally he got me to open the Windows Command Prompt and type in some letters and stuff.
“What does it say now?” he asked.
“It says Kevin is a Jerk” I replied. “It says Kevin is a BIG Jerk”.
Well, Kevin wasn’t at all happy with that. He said some very rude things to me, including some words I’d never even heard before.
Then he hung up.
I think Microsoft needs to introduce more stringent criteria for employing it’s staff.
I shall write to Bill Gates immediately!
I hope you get your own little “Kevin” who gives you a call sometime soon.
Apparently there are a lot of them around at the minute, so please don’t fob them off with a terse “Not today thank you”.
Engage them in a long, drawn-out, clueless telephone conversation that will surely brighten their day, and quite possibly teach you a few sweary words of Hindi too. Result!
andyelkerton.wordpress.com 
That is so funny……..I nearly fell off my chair laughing
Have these fairly often (not always from Kevin 🙂 – My aim also is to keep them on the phone as long as possible [without being distracted from working]. They often get irritated to discover that I have a mac not a PC but i thought they’d knew that already. I have had one that got very nasty and I do wish it was possible to do something about it. But continue to keep them occupied so they can’t get as many calls in as many (non-computer literate people could easily be duped by these Microsoft callers!).
Well done Andy.
My funny friend Andy…this has really cheered me up! For once I am looking forward to hearing from Kevin!
Hey Sarah, I got another one of these yesterday but this time from a woman (Kevina I’m guessing)
Unlike Kevin she started apologising profusely after I’d strung her along for a good ten minutes, and then told her I knew she was a scammer. She sounded so guilt-ridden I almost felt sorry for her!